MMA Betting Tips and Strategies

20 August 2019

by Evanne Creteur

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If you are a passionate mixed martial arts (MMA) fan, you should consider turning your passion into a way so as to make a few extra bucks. Before you dive into MMA betting, you should first create a strategy and plan your moves accordingly.

Don’t get ahead of yourself because not every match is worth betting on. In this article, we’ll give you some useful tips, tricks and strategies to help you place intelligent bets.

Choose Your Fights Wisely

MMA Betting can sometimes be overwhelming, but it’s important to stick to your strategy. Regardless of the number of fights you watched on TV, the truth is that you don’t know everything about the sport. If you are being overconfident about your knowledge of it, that can lead to a major setback in your strategy.

There is so much you can learn about the fighters, so it’s impossible to know everything about every single fight, regardless of how extensive you think your research has been.

You have to be careful about making your pick. Doing research is one thing, but spending actual money is entirely different. That’s why our advice is to avoid placing bets on every fight, but stick to the ones you have a strong feeling about.

Of course, do your homework first and find out everything about the fighters. Afterward, if you are still certain that your prediction is a sure thing, then go for it.

If you love the thrill of fighting but you haven’t had time to do your research, back it up with a smaller bet, just to make it more interesting to watch. This way, you can enjoy the buzz without severely harming your MMA betting budget. Many people tend to place too many bets, and before they know it, they are out of the business. That’s not the right way to go.

Consider the Location

People often overlook the fact that it’s important to know the environment a match will be taking place in. Not every ring or cage is the same, and each of them is suitable for different fighting styles.

Also, you need to consider the altitude of the location since some fighters don’t feel comfortable fighting at higher altitudes.

Performing any kind of physical activity at higher altitudes takes its toll on our bodies.

At higher altitudes, atmospheric pressure and oxygen pressure are decreased, humidity and temperature are lower, and radiation is elevated. Training at higher altitudes has been a proven training method for improving athletic endurance.

But not all fighters are used to training/fighting in hypoxic conditions. That’s why the altitude is a major factor to take into consideration when going through the MMA betting offers.

The other thing you should take into account is the travel distance. Long-haul flights can be exhausting, making it harder for the fighter to prepare for the fight. Also, airsickness is common for long-range flights and it can significantly affect the overall health of the fighter.

Thankfully, fighters keep their fans informed about their whereabouts on social networks, so you can easily monitor their travel schedule.

Keep Yourself in the Loop

You have to be careful when you follow up the news about the fight, as it can be both a blessing and a curse. MMA matches attract a lot of media noise, and false rumors can misguide you to a faulty prediction.

For MMA betting, finding a legit source of information is essential since your predictions will be based on the knowledge you have acquired from the media/internet. Sometimes it’s easier said than done because it can be challenging to figure out which factors will have an impact on the course of the fight. Let’s first check out some of the less important reports.

Report 1

“The first fighter is from Russia. Russian fighters feel more comfortable fighting in this specific arena.”

Report 2

“The second fighter suffered a severe injury during the pre-match preparations.”

Obviously, the first report is irrelevant to the outcome of the match. It’s a known fact that the media tends to exaggerate a lot when it comes to sports reports. If you want to make the most out of your MMA betting, you should be able to recognize the part of the news that is important, as well as the one that is a random ramble aimed to solely attract viewers.

However, report number 2 contains valuable information about the final result of the fight. Injuries can clearly have a tremendous effect on the fighter and only a few fighters are able to overcome it and win the fight. Let’s mention a couple more examples to clear things up even better.

Report 1

“Fighter A had some personal issue with the trainer a couple of days before the fight.”

Report 2

“Fighter B suffered ACL knee injury in a sparring match with his trainer.”

Report number 2 is highly important for all the reasons mentioned above. So, if you are sure that the report is valid, you should take it into consideration when making fight predictions.

On the other hand, report number 1 might be of no consequence at all for the match. This is mainly because most fighters care only about winning, and rarely get distracted by personal issues during the fight.

However, some fighters might perform worse when dealing with emotional problems, particularly when the family is involved. They lose focus because they are preoccupied with personal stuff, and that can cost them a win.

Finally, the main part of a successful MMA betting strategy is to distinguish irrelevant reports from the ones that will play a key role in the outcome of the the fight. This will help you make more accurate predictions, which leads us to our next topic.

Keep a Close Eye on the News

As we pointed out earlier, people tend to be biased in favour of the fighters they love. Sometimes the fans don’t make rational predictions and place bets based on the random gossip from the media only because they want it to be true instead of paying more attention to all the facts.

If you want to be a successful bettor, you have to put your emotions aside and have an open-minded approach to the fight. Your favourite fighter isn’t going to win only because you badly want him to do so.

If you bump into a report that you feel is relevant, go for it, even if it means that you might miss out a better report later on.

If you notice a report that seems legit, make a run for it. But, start small at first and don’t get ahead of yourself since there are plenty of other fights to bet on. If you win the initial bet, you can make stronger bets afterward. Keep a close eye on the news. If the reports change, you can easily use the remaining of your budget or simply skip the fight and wait for the next one.

Separating valid from nonsense reports can be very challenging and demands close monitoring of the news. A part of our MMA betting strategy is to analyze other people’s predictions and to try to figure out what led them to make that particular bet.

Oftentimes, the media monitor bookmakers, and their assumptions and reports are based on the odds change. However, bookmakers present odds based on their own reports and don’t keep tabs on other bookmakers.

Bookmakers have similar odds only because they all want to maintain a competitive edge. Also, the number of bets taken at the particular sportsbook doesn’t affect the odds. Be that as it may, if you want to make the big bucks, even the slightest odds difference is important. That leads us to our next point.

Sportsbook Operators Provide Different MMA Betting Odds

If you want to make the most out of your MMA betting tactics, you should look into the odds from multiple bookmakers. It’s customary that different operators provide different odds for the same match.

Naturally, different subsidiaries from the same operator always provide the same odds. This means that you should check out different operators, not subsidiaries.

Every sportsbook has its own system and they all operate differently. Therefore, your job is to find the bookmaker with the best odds on the market.

Avoid Betting on Superstars

This is quite obvious, but you need to watch out for the matches that involve superstars. Placing bets on underdogs might be a cost-effective strategy, but avoid betting against superstars — you might as well flush your money down the toilet.

Betting against fighters like Royce Gracie, Anderson Silva or Fedor Emelianenko would be absurd. Although it may have seemed a good bet because the odds against them were sky-high, it’s a bad idea to bet against great fighters who rarely lose.

The best thing you can do when it comes to MMA betting involving superstars is to avoid them. If you bet on them, the payout is miserable, and if you bet against them, you’ll never win. So, the smart way is to get away from overhyped matches and fighters as far as you can.

Fighting Styles Are Important

The best MMA betting approach is to look into the fighters’ skill set. Every professional MMA fighter has his or her own trademark style. Like in other sports, MMA fighters have to learn different skills.

They specialize in a selected few, but oftentimes they also learn multiple martial arts. Sometimes, a particular fighting style doesn’t match up well against others. In every sport, matchups are very important, and you should take them into account when making predictions. A Muay Thai specialist could own the boxer but perform poorly against a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert.

That said, it’s important to inform yourself about all the fighting styles and potential matchups if you want to make more accurate predictions.

Examine the Fighters

Learn everything you can about the fighters. But first figure out what piece of information is insignificant and don’t waste your time.

Check out the fighters’ sparring partners.

If the fighters are training with former champs or world-known fighters, they’ll usually perform better. If they’re training with people that no one has heard of, you should be cautious when betting on them.

Check out whether the fighter has brought a specialist from a different discipline to help him or her prepare for a fight against a specific opponent. These specialists don’t have to be from the MMA world; they could be legends in their respective disciplines.

Numbers don’t lie, but they usually don’t tell the whole story.

Don’t rely too much on the fighter’s record. The record can be a good indicator of their performance, but you can’t know for sure how they are going to respond to a specific opponent or a fighting style. You can rely on statistics only if you want to see how they performed against a similar opponent.

Don’t disregard injuries.

Only because the fighter told the reporters on the press conference that he or she is healthy, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are telling the truth. Many fighters are suffering from injuries all the time and you need to find out everything you can about the gravity of the injury and the recovery time.

Sometimes fighters get impatient and rush into the gym before their injury has completely healed. If their injuries didn’t fully heal, that can have a significant impact on the outcome of the match, and, of course, your ticket.

If you see a fighter that suffered from ACL knee injury, showing up in the gym a month later and saying he or she is recovered, avoid betting on them.

Recovery from ACL injuries takes months, possibly years. Some injuries might affect a particular fighting style. For example, if a boxing specialist hurts his or her hand, it will obviously affect their performance. On the other hand, the same injury won’t affect a Jiu-Jitsu fighter to the same extent.

Look over the coaching staff before making your MMA betting predictions.

Some coaches have what it takes to adjust to a certain fighter. Coaches have an important role in the fighter’s performance, so it is definitely worthwhile to learn more about the people behind the scenes.